


Appeal

by thistlestickle



Series: This Changes Nothing [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Teddy Lupin, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Malfoy Family, Pureblood Society, Reconciliation, Sisters, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:11:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistlestickle/pseuds/thistlestickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Narcissa Malfoy successfully appeals part of her sentence under the Ministry's amnesty programme for low-risk prisoners. </p><p>Andromeda has nightmares and does something unexpected, but not completely surprising.</p><p>My "sisters Black" canon is The Death of Narcissa Black... so Narcissa and Andromeda will reference that (brilliant) work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appeal

**AZKABAN FOR SOME AS WIZARD PRISON REOPENS**

The Daily Prophet headline should feel like a punch to the gut, but it barely registers. News of Lucius’ suicide has been relegated to page eight.

Draco has not been permitted to contact his mother, or has chosen not to, after his release from the Manor, which is being auctioned to pay reparations to the muggles tortured four years ago at the World Cup and since; to the families of those killed by the Death Eaters; to the Granger girl for being tortured by Bellatrix; to anyone and everyone. The Malfoy accounts are frozen and drained; the family assets liquidated and auctioned.

Narcissa now represents a small stipend and a significant burden to whomever takes on responsibility for her custody. That is if her appeal is successful. Narcissa could still face an Azkaban sentence if her appeal fails. She knows this, and is delaying getting ready for her hearing. She hopes Draco will be there. She knows it was not Draco who sponsored her appeal.

Narcissa cannot begin to comprehend how things got to this point. She never asked to sit around her own table and be dictated to by some pale, snake-faced thing in a robe. Narcissa curses Lucius and his ignorant, brutal vanity. She curses herself, and the choices made to push her into this twenty-year trap. She curses His henchmen with their masks and marks and she curses Him for their invention.

 _Masks which you donned happily enough_ , says a small voice inside her which she cannot yet hear. _You didn’t say no this time. Even without a babe in arms you had a hundred ways to say it, you could have waited to be Imperiused like Thicknesse. Now look where it landed you. You knew what you were doing, and no lack of Priori Incantatem evidence is going to absolve you of those looks, that hatred, and that guilt._

Narcissa twitches her pale head, dismissing the faint buzz of her conscience. Heaving a sigh, she stands from the cot, sweeping the day-old paper to the floor. She must put aside these lamentations and prepare to attend the Wizengamot for her appeal hearing. She is determined not to rot in the same prison that would have held Lucius, determined to recover her son, determined to survive this. She still doubts that the appeal can really be going ahead, considering the circumstances. She is more wary than grateful.

Narcissa knocks on the door of her locked cell to alert her guard, who has been on shift for two hours, and who now bustles her into the only Floo-activated fireplace left in the house.

 _Ministry of Magic_ , the guard shouts. Narcissa is whisked, spinning, into a green-tinged darkness.

⇝

Andromeda is dreaming.

_Billowing up from a dark shadow, a ghostly image of her middle sister tells her she may as well have fucked a sheep, echoing her oldest sister’s derisive laughter on finding out._

_She mouths silently what should have been shouted words and is unable to leave, forced to face every cruel act and family tragedy in one great montage through the past three decades._

_The montage slows to a nightmare crawl version of a final battle as it never happened: Dora and her own Ted, limp and battered bodies strung up and surrounded by a crowing and triumphant mob of masked predators._

_A shadow Bellatrix looms gigantic over their bodies, taunting an Andromeda who is not there with joyful cruelty._

_In the background she tries to shut her ears to the pained yowls of a werewolf forced by some horrible magic to transform repeatedly, bones audibly cracking under the relentless changes until he finally lies still, a wolf’s jaws mid-snap atop a man’s shredded body._

The real Andromeda wakes in a cold sweat, heart racing.

 _Damn it,_ she thrashes out of the covers. _Damn it. I need to ask for a better sleeping draught._

Andromeda shuffles to the toilet, the floorboard in their bedroom creaking underfoot. She has forced herself to finally sleep in there, after months of avoidance and excuses. Teddy sleeps through the night now and she can’t afford to move house.

The decision to stay, and to move back into their room, has intensified her nightmares. A Healer friend brews her an over-strength sleeping draught of the sort which have become popular since the war ended, but its effectiveness wears down every few months and it increasingly leaves her with a hangover the next morning.

Shuffling back through the bedroom, Andromeda sheds her damp nightdress and prods her dressing gown with her wand to warm it before putting it on. The house is cold - it’s November, with frost on the ground and windows. Teddy has graduated from his infant sleep sacks to much heavier woollen ones, newly knitted by Molly and musically enchanted to play lullabies by Arthur.

 _Those two have saved us both, in so many ways_ , Andromeda thinks to herself as she passed Teddy’s room, the soft sound of a lullaby drifting into the corridor. _I have absolutely no idea what time it is. It must be morning._

As if in reply, the village clock bongs a friendly reminder. It is six o’clock in the morning. There’s no point in trying to get back to bed, so Andromeda decides now is as good a time as any to finish packing away Ted’s clothes and journals, and goes to retrieve a box from the store cupboard in the hall. Today is a big day, after all. The repetitious motion of packing boxes might steady her nerves, which have never been so on edge.

⇝

Two hours later, Andromeda drops the last journal, unopened, into the fifth and final box. Teddy has woken up and is now happily wiggling about on his blanket next to her. She prises open the loft and with repeated waves of her wand ushers five boxes laden with Ted Tonks’ personal effects into the far east corner, sealed with anti-moth and anti-damp spells.

They come to rest alongside a single box of Remus’ books, photographs and letters and three boxes of Dora’s old school things, two pairs of wedding robes, and an album of letters and photographs from Dora’s time at Auror training. There is also a muggle contraption which goes with a small box of what Andromeda thinks is called vine-ulls, and a battered leather case tied with string and stamped with faded, peeling letters: Professor R J Lupin.

As the door to the loft thumps itself closed, showering Andromeda with dust and a sprinkling of plaster, Narcissa Malfoy is being marched into the holding cells at the High Court of the Wizengamot to await her sentencing appeal.

Andromeda dusts off her hands, activates a thirty-minute glowing Day Nurse orb next to Teddy, and takes herself off to get cleaned up and changed. They are due at the High Court of the Wizengamot in forty minutes. She is not at all sure, as she stands under the hot spray of a purifying shower, that she has made the right decision.

⇝

_I hereby decree, on behalf of the High Court of the Wizengamot, that Narcissa Black Malfoy is successful in her sentencing appeal, and is to be remanded in custody to her sister, Andromeda Black Tonks, where she will serve a three year sentence under house arrest._

_Account shall be taken of her time in custody and her sentence accordingly reduced. Andromeda Black Tonks will receive a monthly stipend sufficient to cover the additional expenses of supervised remand._

_A trained worker from the Rehabilitation Squad in the Ministry’s Commission for Reparation and Rehabilitation will be supplied at the request of the Wizengamot to support the resettlement of Mrs. Malfoy into the custody of her sister._

Narcissa opens her eyes, not fully realising they had been squeezed so tightly shut she would see stars. She should be grateful and relieved. She hasn’t properly seen her sister in almost thirty years, aside from one very short visit at the prison when she was first convicted. Instead she is surprised to find her mind filling with apprehension. Surely a legal escape from Azkaban should feel better than this?

At the start, Narcissa had no idea that it had been Andromeda to support her appeal. She had assumed it was her son. It was a shock when her sister, not so terrifying as Bellatrix but every bit as self-possessed, strode into the court today, with the colourful half-breed in a sling across her front, and stated under oath that she would willingly take over Narcissa’s custodial arrangement, offering her an alternative to Azkaban.

Even more surprising is Andromeda’s allowance of a wand, although Narcissa will be subject to many restrictions and will be able to perform magic only within the confines of the residence. Narcissa is devastated that Draco did not attend and did not appear to have any hand at all in her salvation.

She cannot imagine what her sister, disowned and roundly abused for her betrayal so many years ago, could possibly want out of this arrangement. Perhaps it was the money. Narcissa marvelled that a small stipend could possibly be enough to overcome decades of mutual detestment, but then she had never wanted for anything, so perhaps this was how the plebs lived after all. To Narcissa, this arrangement, if reversed, would be unfathomable.

 _Yes, but she wasn’t an accessory to war crimes, was she_ said that inaudible voice. _So this opportunity would never present itself to you, anyway. Being a blood traitor isn’t an actual crime ...anymore._

Narcissa is escorted back to the holding cells for a brief period whilst Andromeda signs the paperwork for her release and for her wand. She sinks into a kind of reverie and jumps when the lock turns in the door. Moments later, a guard - not a guard, an Auror - escorts her to the main lobby of the Department of Magical Law enforcement. Andromeda is standing there, half-breed in its sling with what looks like paperwork and a wand box. Narcissa blanches and stops, but the Auror takes her elbow firmly and pushes her along. They come to a stop and he taps her arm with his wand, which causes Narcissa to feel too warm for a moment before it fades.

Andromeda looks up from scribbling a final signature to see her middle sister standing before her, a confused mask of contrived gratitude alternating with revulsion as she spys Teddy in his sling. Andromeda lets out a slow, hissing breath, shakes the Auror’s hand, and begins to walk out of the lobby.

Narcissa, still standing there looking from Auror to Andromeda’s retreating form, finds herself suddenly yanked along so hard that she stumbles and cries out. Andromeda turns back and stops, watching, as Narcissa stands up. She motions to her to come over, and Narcissa does; her arm feels strange, almost bruised.

_Didn’t they explain to you? You’re magically chained to us. You need to follow closely, within a few metres, when we are outside of our home or any other approved location. Take your wand. You can’t apparate alone, so I’ll have to take all three of us. They should have told you all this on the release paperwork. Let’s go, Teddy will be needing his second breakfast._

With that, Andromeda whips her arm out, yanks Narcissa closer, and turns on the spot.

 


End file.
